Part 34 (1/2)

'Where were were you?' Franny asked me; she pushed my hair back. you?' Franny asked me; she pushed my hair back.

'With Fehlgeburt,' I said, sheepishly. I would never lie to Franny.

Franny frowned. 'Well, how was it?' she asked, still touching me - but like a sister.

'Not so great,' I said. I looked away from Franny. 'Awful,' I added.

Franny put her arms around me and kissed me. She meant to kiss me on the cheek (like a sister), but I turned toward her, though I was trying to turn away, and our lips met. And that was it, that was all it took. That was, the end of the summer of 1964; suddenly it was autumn. I was twenty-two, Franny was twenty-three. We kissed a long time. There was nothing to say. She was not a lesbian, she still wrote to Junior Jones - and to Chipper Dove - and I had never been happy with another woman; not ever; not yet. We stayed out on the street, out of the light cast by the neon, so that no one in the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re could see us. We had to break up our kissing when a customer of Jolanta's came staggering out of the hotel, and we broke it up again when we heard Screaming Annie. In a little while her dazed customer came out, but Franny and I still stayed on the Krugerstra.s.se. Later, Babette went home. Then Jolanta went home, taking Dark Inge with her. Screaming Annie came out and back, out and back, like the tide. Old Billig the wh.o.r.e went across the street to the Kaffee Mowatt and dozed on a table. I walked Franny up to the Karntnerstra.s.se, and down to the Opera. 'You think of me too much,' Franny started to say, but she didn't bother to finish. We kissed some more. The Opera was so big beside us.

'They're going to blow it up,' I whispered to my sister. 'The Opera - they're going to blow it up.' She let me hold her. 'I love you terribly much,' I told her.

'I love you, too, d.a.m.n d.a.m.n it,' Franny said. it,' Franny said.

Although the weather was feeling like fall, it was possible for us to stand there, guarding the Opera, until the light came up and the real people came out to go to work. There was no place we could go, anyway - and absolutely nothing, we knew, that we should do.

'Keep pa.s.sing the open windows,' we whispered to each other.

When we finally went back to the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, the Opera was still standing there - safe. Safe for a while, anyway, I thought.

'Safer than we we are,' I told Franny. 'Safer than love.' are,' I told Franny. 'Safer than love.'

'Let me tell you, kid,' Franny said to me, squeezing my hand. 'Everything's safer than love.' safer than love.'

10

A Night at the Opera: Schlagobers and Blood .

'Children, children,' Father said to us, 'we must be very careful. I think this is the turning point the turning point, kids,' our father said, as if we were still eight, nine, ten, and so forth, and he was telling us about meeting Mother at the Arbuthnot-by-the-Sea - that night they first saw Freud, with State o' Maine.

'There's always a turning point,' Frank said, philosophically.

'Okay, supposing there is,' Franny said, impatiently, 'but what is this particular turning point?'

'Yeah,' said Susie the bear, looking Franny over very carefully; Susie was the only one who'd noticed that Franny and I were out all night. Franny had told her we'd gone to a party near the university with some people Susie didn't know. And what could be safer than having your brother, and a weight lifter, for an escort? Susie didn't like parties, anyway; if she went as a bear, there was no one she could talk to, and if she didn't go as a bear, no one seemed interested in talking to her. She looked sulky and cross. 'There's a lot of s.h.i.+t to deal with in a hurry, as I see it,' said Susie the bear.

'Exactly,' Father said. 'That's the typical turning-point situation.'

'We can't blow this one,' Freud said. 'I don't think I got many more hotels left in me.' Which might be a good thing, I thought, trying to keep my eyes off Franny. We were all in Frank's room, the conference room - as if the dressmaker's dummy were a soothing presence, were a silent ghost of Mother or Egg or Iowa Bob; somehow the dummy was supposed to radiate signals and we were supposed to catch the signals (according to Frank).

'How much can we get for the novel, Frank?' Father asked.

'It's Lilly's book,' Franny said. 'It's not our our book.' book.'

'In a way, it is,' Lilly said.

'Precisely,' Frank said, 'and the way I understand publis.h.i.+ng, it's out of her hands now. Now is where we either get taken or we make a killing.'

'It's just about growing up,' Lilly said. 'I'm sort of surprised they're interested.'

'They're only five thousand dollars interested, Lilly,' Franny said.

'We need fifteen or twenty thousand to leave,' Father said. 'If we're going to have a chance to do anything with it, back home,' he added.

'Don't forget: we'll get something for this this place,' Freud said, defensively. place,' Freud said, defensively.

'Not after we blow the whistle on the f.u.c.king bombers,' said Susie the bear.

'There will be such a scandal,' Frank said, 'we won't get a buyer.'

'I told you: we'll get the police on our our a.s.s if we blow the whistle at all,' Freud said. 'You don't know our police, their Gestapo tactics. They'll find something we're doing wrong with the wh.o.r.es, too.' a.s.s if we blow the whistle at all,' Freud said. 'You don't know our police, their Gestapo tactics. They'll find something we're doing wrong with the wh.o.r.es, too.'

'Well, there's a lot that is is wrong,' Franny said. We couldn't look at each other; when Franny talked, I looked out the window. I saw Old Billig the radical crossing the street. I saw Screaming Annie dragging herself home. wrong,' Franny said. We couldn't look at each other; when Franny talked, I looked out the window. I saw Old Billig the radical crossing the street. I saw Screaming Annie dragging herself home.

'There's no way we can't can't blow the whistle,' Father said. 'If they actually think they can blow up the Opera, there's no talking to them.' blow the whistle,' Father said. 'If they actually think they can blow up the Opera, there's no talking to them.'

'There never was was any talking to them,' Franny said. 'We just listened.' any talking to them,' Franny said. 'We just listened.'

'They've always been crazy,' I said to Father.

'Don't you know know that, Daddy?' Lilly asked him. that, Daddy?' Lilly asked him.

Father hung his head. He was forty-four, a distinguished gray appearing on the thick brown hair around his ears; he had never worn sideburns, and he had his hair cut in a uniform, mid-ear, mid-forehead, just-covering-the-back-of-his-neck way; he never thinned it. He wore bangs, like a little boy, and his hair fit his head so dramatically well that from a distance we were sometimes fooled into thinking that Father was wearing a helmet.

'I'm sorry, kids,' Father said, shaking his head. 'I know this isn't very pleasant, but I feel we're at the turning point the turning point.' He shook his head some more; he looked really lost to us, and it was only later that I would remember him on Frank's bed, in that dressmaker's dummy of a room, as looking really quite handsome and in charge of things. Father was always good at creating the illusion that he was in charge of things: Earl, for example. He hadn't lifted the weights, like Iowa Bob, or like me, but Father had kept his athletic figure, and certainly he had kept his boyishness - 'too f.u.c.king much much boyishness,' as Franny would say. It occurred to me that he must be lonely; in seven years, he hadn't had a date! And if he used the wh.o.r.es, he was discreet about it - and in boyishness,' as Franny would say. It occurred to me that he must be lonely; in seven years, he hadn't had a date! And if he used the wh.o.r.es, he was discreet about it - and in that that Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, who could be Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, who could be that that discreet? discreet?

'He can't be seeing any of them,' Franny had said. 'I'd simply know it, if he was.'

'Men are sneaky,' Susie the bear had said. 'Even nice guys.'

'So he's not doing it; that's settled,' Franny had said. Susie the bear had shrugged, and Franny had hit her.

But in Frank's room, it was Father who brought up the wh.o.r.es.

'We should tell them them what we're going to do about the crazy radicals,' Father said, ' what we're going to do about the crazy radicals,' Father said, 'before we tell the police.' we tell the police.'

'Why?' Susie the bear asked him. 'One of them might blow the whistle on us us.'

'Why would they do that?' I asked Susie.

'We should tell them so they can make other plans,' Father said.

'They'll have to change hotels,' Freud said. 'The d.a.m.n police will close us down. In this country, you're guilty by a.s.sociation!' Freud cried. 'Just ask any Jew!' Just ask the other other Freud, I thought. Freud, I thought.

'But suppose we were heroes heroes,' Father said, and we all looked at him. Yes, that would be nice, I was thinking.

'Like in Lilly's book?' Frank asked Father.

'Suppose the police thought that we were heroes for uncovering the bomb plot?' Father asked.